


I am under-prepared, but I am willing

by vexahliaderolo



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Background Relationships, Confessions, Denial of Feelings, Developing Relationship, Feelings Realization, Fluff and Angst, Implied/Referenced Sex, Love Confessions, M/M, Minor Beauregard/Jester Lavorre, Mollymauk Tealeaf Lives, Multi, Not Canon Compliant, jester has a crush, some good boys running in confused circles for 7000 words, very brief mention of beau/jester
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-24
Updated: 2019-02-24
Packaged: 2019-11-04 16:34:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,388
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17901656
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vexahliaderolo/pseuds/vexahliaderolo
Summary: “You’re a liar, Mollymauk Tealeaf, and you know it. That’s the worst part.”Molly and Fjord have an encounter and struggle with the concept of love.





	I am under-prepared, but I am willing

**Author's Note:**

> I'm back with more unbeta'd words to unleash upon the world!!! Hopefully you all enjoy it, let me know!
> 
> Title fully (and content vaguely) inspired by Sara Bareilles' "I Choose You", it's a real heart-warmer so please do check it out if you have time.
> 
> "I'll unfold before you  
> Would have strung together  
> The very first words  
> Of a lifelong love letter"

“So, Fjord and I fucked.”

The reaction to that very succinct sentence was really everything Molly had hoped it would be; the two faces of the friends seated opposite him at the quaint little breakfast table in the corner of the shady looking inn had now morphed rather drastically, working themselves through a varied display of shock and awe, plus a singular look of deliciously acute disgust, courtesy of Beauregard.

“I am  _eating_ my _breakfast_.” She hissed as her fork, weighed down with at least three slices of hot enough to spit bacon, crashed back on to the tableware in front of her.

Taking one of the spare strips of meat from the plate, Molly laughed, using sharpened teeth to tear the bacon in to easily devourable chunks;

“Considering how recently I have had to listen to your own exploits, through the walls of this very establishment I might add, I’m going to take this opportunity to tell you to get over it.”

Beau didn’t have the decency to blush as another might’ve, they were rather obviously alike in that aspect at least. He swung his legs up as he spoke, letting one heeled boot perch atop the table before settling his other leg above it, crossing them at the knees and fiddling with the rolled over leather that formed the tops of his boots, distracting his fingers from their usual restlessness with a new stimuli now that they were free of breakfast treats.

“Oh my God, are you serious? Really?!” Jester’s accent hit full force as she relented to her curiosity with no resistance, pastry crumbs and powdered sugar littering the very edges of her plump mouth in a stark dusting of white on blue. “Like,  _really_  really? When? Where? Was it here?! Was it nice? I bet it was nice, Fjord seems like he would—“ Whatever her sentiments had been about the half-orcs love-making capabilities, they were cut short by the gentle tap of a tanned hand to her mile-a-minute mouth.

“It’s still before noon and not only have I already had to hear that the bastard opposite has had carnal relations with someone who, at this point, is basically my brother, but I have also had to watch aforementioned bastard eat my bacon in front of me whilst they explained that fact with no prior warning.” Beau drops her hand, her expression one of pure suffering and disdain (though Molly felt the love beneath it), seemingly only so she may use it to gesture dramatically towards her rapidly emptying plate. “Please do not hurt me any more than this, Jes.”

The cleric offered up an apologetic look to the woman beside her, large rounded eyes punctuating the sentiment with an air of sincerity that Molly had yet to achieve even on his best days. As soon as the unspoken ‘sorry’ had been accepted and Beau had made off with both her plate and Mollymauk’s coin, the curiosity in Jester had reached peak capacity; she was just a small tiefling after all.

“So?” She was aglow with intrigue and her fingers tip-tapped across the distressed wood of the table between them; they had all come to learn over these past months that Jester had two weak points: mystery and romance, the current situation was doing an inspiring balancing act between the two that brought her to the very top of her game. Molly caught the stash of doughnuts, croissants and other treats stashed in the bubblegum pink haversack beside her, a swell of brotherly affection in his chest. Perhaps it was three weaknesses, we all had our vices afterall. “Good? Bad?” She continued.

“The best.” And he found it wasn’t a lie. It had even been difficult to keep the wistfulness from his voice just remembering the evening he had had. Just days ago he would have started at how easily those words had come, would have laughed at himself most likely, but since last night he had pondered how exactly he could describe it in any other way. It was simple, but effective.

Jester seemed to melt in her seat as he had, yet even more ostensibly so, hands clasped together in front of her chest as she bounced in her seat. It must have taken all of her strength to keep her voice as low as she did once she had composed herself enough to reply, and she cast a glance to the inn’s bar where the rest of their party were gathered as she spoke.

“So you say  _fucked—“_ Molly would truly never tire of his unfiltered delight from Jester’s candy coated curses. “But what you really mean is that you, well... Now, don’t you laugh, but you made love, right?”

It was a turn of phrase he hadn't heard in a long while, a romantic notion he feared he might not have much experience with and she was right to warn him beforehand, how out of place it felt in a conversation that he was a part of it! He stifled the chuckle that threatened to escape with difficulty. Was it as ridiculous as it seemed, though? Or was it simply the person he had designed for others, unfazed and unfiltered, the kind of person who laughs at the idea of making love.

Perhaps posing the statement as a question was meant to make Molly more amenable to the suggestion that he might, in fact, have feelings. Real, spine-tingling, heart-rendering ones. Emotions that weren’t bred from carnival cheer or backhanded banter, and it certainly wasn’t true that he didn’t, Jester knew that too, but he was so inexplicably good at being something more than himself that even he sometimes forgot that he could feel something deeper than what touched his violet skin. He thought about it, averting his gaze from his grease covered fingertips at last, to instead settle it upon Fjord. It was a task he often avoided as, being a creature that sought after pleasure and joy in even the most basic of tasks, he found it difficult not to unabashedly stare at the sights he found before him. Molly had practice by now, of course he did  _—_  he wasn’t going to deny himself that treat, but still that sensation plagued him, tickling the back of his neck every time he tried to look away like a spectral hand trying to hold him steady. ‘Don’t’ it would say, ‘What if there’s something you missed?’, he had to soak it all in; every bump of Fjord’s knuckles was a jewelled ring to kiss, every callous on his roughened palms was a story of the sea, and Mollymauk’s favourite was knowing now exactly how the contrastingly soft skin of his back, littered with the deep etchings of long held scars, would catch beneath sharp nails. There was no escape from it once his gaze had caught, he drowned in it and enjoyed every breathless second.

The other man was still where he had been last, leaning against the bar with Caleb, Yasha, Clay and Nott, as lost in his own conversations as Molly had been in his and like a child they wondered if the orc ever spoke of them; a compliment they had not been there to engineer or hear felt all the sweeter, even in their daydreams.

“You can tell me if you like him.” Her voice had been so soft then that the gentleness of it had been its own kind of volume, enough to snap his attention back to her. All little freckles and big heart, our darling Jester. “Or if you love him.”

Molly held her gaze for a long time, then. It was not the first time he had had this conversation, he and his own heart had daily heated discussions on the theory of love and how it featured in the life he had chosen for himself; Was it in his ‘Mollymauk Tealeaf Blueprint’? Did Mollymauk fall in love? Did it fill him with the happiness and contentment he craved, was he strong enough to let it go if it didn’t? In fact, he knew every answer already, had known it long before last night, but to hear an answer stuttered out between the pit-a-pat of his heart was no match for the enormity of releasing that information in to the uncaring void of the world.

If I give this weight, he thought, if I give this life in my voice it could hurt... me?

No. No, that wasn’t it, that wasn’t what made his stomach churn, anxiety biting at his guts, eating him from the inside out; the words echoed again as he struggled to keep the grimace from rising through his features, the words shifting, knowing — feeling the real fear in his soul and dragging it to the light.

_I could hurt him_.

He smiled over the jitters that started in his hands, entwining his fingers between each other, swinging his arms up behind his head to cushion it from behind as he let out a long, over-acted ‘hmm’ which made Jester frown almost immediately, as if she could see his inner self running for the hills already.

“I wonder. I hadn’t thought about it. Good lay though.” Rather vulgar and heavily shielded, the Mollymauk special, it was as hauntingly easy as ever to string the falsities together. It was miraculous, he thought, how the cracks in his armour weren’t visible on his skin when it felt like they were shredding through the fragile fleshy layers and in to his bones.

“You’re a liar, Mollymauk Tealeaf, and you know it. That’s the worst part.” Jester was almost pouting at this point, her expressions always a cartoonish version of others’ but still unmistakably from the heart all the same. It broke him a little to hear it, even though it was as true as she stated. After a long pause and disappointed sigh she carried on, relentless in her mission to have Molly face himself at this dirty breakfast table;

“I think you do.” Animal-like eyes rested comfortingly on his, doe-like dewy sparkles littered across those magenta irises and goat-like pupils. “I think you love him very much and it frightens you. Everybody is scared Molly. We’re all just doing our best everyday not to buckle under the weight. Love is heavy and we’re all carrying our own share, you know?”

It was infuriating to be lectured like this, knowing she was right and knowing further still that he was always going to be a coward in the face of this particular foe.

“It’s a good thing though, it’s a nice weight when you realise it’s meant to be shared. You can carry it together, you’d be amazed how far you can take such a heavy thing when there’s something there to help you.” She smiled then and he didn’t miss the glance she cast over to the angry slash of lush tan and cobalt blue that made up their party’s monk as she soldiered on. “You just have to be brave and chase that happiness, you deserve it after all.”

“A wonderful sentiment. If only it wasn’t coming from the mind of a hypocrite who deserved it too.” Molly made sure to keep his tone light, it wasn’t an insult, it was merely the truth; he started laughing under his breath before he was even finished as he watched Jester manage to cycle through every emotion he imagined existed throughout all the planes, in under half a second. Punctuating the continuing sentences with a nod towards the bar where Beauregard had purchased more bacon and was furiously attempting to navigate the multi-tasking aspect of arguing with Caleb and shovelling the meat in to her mouth at the same time. He also took the time to note the furrow between Fjord’s brows as he too watched the train wreck happen, his expression the strangest mix of affection and utter resignation. “She is, in fact, as dense as she looks.”

It was another Jester themed delight to watch her sky coloured skin turn that dusty rose, watching her groan and lean her head down so that her cheek squished, marshmallow like, against the table below.

“We’re both right, or whatever.”

The plump body opposite suddenly shot straight up, a finger pointed accusingly towards him and he instinctively lifted his hands in to a gesture of surrender, playing along with perfected enthusiasm.

“I’ve seen the way you look at him, Molly. All gooey and mushy. ” Pink eyes narrowed and he couldn’t help the slow spread of his lip as he grinned, watching her nose scrunch up in thought but as quickly as her comical gestures had begun, they ended. The time for play had been short and her body was sagging now, surrounded with an aura of resignation. “If you won’t admit you’re in love then that’s your prerogative. I’m not cruel enough to force it out of you if you’re choosing to resist.”

“A noble retreat from a noble heart—”

“You’re in  _love_?! You?!” The incredulous, shrill voice that interrupted him made Mollymauk almost jump from his seat on to the floor for two reasons. The first was the obvious, it had come from nowhere and it had been right beside his ear, loud and unexpected like most things in his life had been recently. The second was that when his eyes finally lowered to his right side, they found that the little goblin girl, Nott, stood by his side now. The little goblin girl that had not been there even a minute past, the goblin that currently held in her arms a ginger tabby cat that stared at Molly as intently as Nott did. That furry feline friend that was never far from—

“Oh,  _ja_? Who’s the lucky target?” Caleb. The rugged looking wizard settled in to a seat at the far end of the table, Caduceus standing behind him, deft fingers tickling under the chin of Frumpkin as the latter leapt from the goblin’s motherly hold and strode across the table to collect his well deserved scritches.

Mollymauk suppressed the frantic feeling that bubbled in his chest or at least he had tried to, the helpless defences crumbling to nothing once his eyes landed on the women across the table from him. Beauregard was back now, perched precariously on her chair, seemingly as interested in this conversation as a Rakshasa would be in the philosophy of forgiving and forgetting. Yasha had settled on the other side of everyone’s beloved cleric, characteristically sombre and distracted by the barest sliver of storm cloud that could be glimpsed on the square of horizon visible through the dirtied windows (he assumed somewhere in his subconscious that this is where she had been hiding recently, this being the first glimpse of her he had had in days). It was Jester though, that rattled his hold on himself. Thick lashes turned upward as her head tilted back to stare up, gaze resting above Molly’s head and he knew the entire party had convened together now. Everyone. Each of them catching, with no ill intent, the end of he and Jester’s conversation. The adrenaline that seeped familiarly from his fear filled core pulsed and pushed against his skin from the inside, rocketing through his veins from the silken ends of his hair to the very tips of manicured nails.   
  
He didn’t turn around. Didn’t need to, he decided, after Caleb had gestured to the seat at Molly’s left and been left with silence. The tiefling found he had never been so aware of an empty space in his life. It radiated an energy that made him shrink in to himself, hands clasped and sweating in his lap. It must have been obvious then, as Fjord made his way by them all, ignoring each curious glance until there was nothing left for them to do but cast them upon Molly instead. The suddenness of it all left him reeling, dizzy and unprepared for the questions he was sure were about to come; it wasn’t until the door was in front of him that he realised he had even moved.

It towered above him, or so he felt it did. A gate to his fears and desires both. It was a wonder and miracle that his hand reached towards the door’s handle without even pausing, that he opened it without knocking, turning with it so that his eyes met only the knots in the wood and not a harsh gaze from the unmoved recipient of his affections. It was simply a miracle he did not drop to the ground then and there, feeling the air still in the room as the last click of the door’s locks sounded.

“You followed me.” The voice ripped the breath from his lungs and his slick palms pressed against the stripped wood ahead of them, desperate for a solid force to control the tremble within them that travelled all the way down to his knees. Gods, a miracle indeed.

Turning with a smile was his first step before he even allowed himself to remember that he was expected to reply; One foot and then the other, he chanted inside his mind. Lift those cheeks, add a sparkle to your eyes, hold your chest high and show him you’re not afraid of this. There was no way to know if he had succeeded on each point, right now he only knew that he had turned because Fjord was ahead of him now, a vast improvement on the dull, half-shredded wood of the entrance, he could find a small spark of joy in that at least.   


“Always do.” He swore there was a twinge at the corner of Fjord’s mouth, the tiniest glint of white tusk peeking out from between thick lips accompanying a lightning fast flush of muted red across jaded cheeks, and if he had imagined it it was somewhat effortless to pretend he had not, the heat in him it caused spreading like a comforting shot of fire-like whiskey. A gentle confidence rocked him forward.

“Fjord, I—”

“Wait.” It had taken half a step before he had been interrupted but he obeyed. Standing barely a foot from the door, staring across the distance between them. If I reached out now, his voice was loud in his mind, echoing painfully, I could touch him, I wouldn’t have to say a thing, he would just…  _understand_. The contemplation took too long and suddenly the distance was more, expanding with every step Fjord took away from him, pacing the room slowly and if he thought any harder Mollymauk was sure he would hear the gravel-like grind of the gears in his mind.

“All of that..” The warlock had stilled now, facing the vision of nervous energy Molly imagined he must be and green hands gestured forcefully in front of him, punctuating every ‘that’ the man had stuttered out before he managed to grasp the sentence fully. “That  _stupid_  bravado and crass joking before, everything you said after.” He paused and it was like every muscle in Molly’s body went taut. “Everything you didn’t say.”

The change in his tone was matched by the fluctuations in his familiar southern lilt and Molly ached with the knowledge it brought. We all have shields around us, personalised guards we choose to keep us safe, Fjord had let his down that night — was letting it down now — and Molly had seen it, known it then, had let himself soak up every moment of that vulnerability and wrapped himself in the warmth of it all.

All the while he had left Fjord in the cold, waiting on what lay behind a curtain Mollymauk had never planned to lift.

“You  _left_. I woke up alone, Molly.” For the first time in his short new life Molly felt he might cry; That vicious sting in the corners of his eyes, the lump in his throat that he couldn’t seem to swallow, he hated it, he wished he had never remembered how to do this. “We stay in the same room for God's’ sake and you left. Was I supposed to believe that it meant anything other than you having gotten what you wanted and that whatever this—” He gestured again, his arm flung out towards the unlit, monotone room. “—is, was over.”

It became apparent to Molly fast that the man in front of him wasn’t even angry, and it crushed him. There was no raising volume, no violent movements or rage fuelled insults, every syllable was careful and contained and dripped with the bitter taste of a broken promise. He could not blame him either. He may not have promised with his words but Molly knew Fjord, had been here for months watching every move he made and every word he spoke, to say he couldn’t have known what he did was cause him hurt, that it would be a disappointment he did not deserve to suffer through, would have been an obvious lie. Molly had lied enough.

“I’m sorry.” It was pathetic, he knew that. His voice was small and he thought for a fear filled second that maybe Fjord wouldn’t hear him, but he recognised the press of his lips and the way his eyes swept to the side. He was thinking again and so Molly pressed on, chancing a step forward as he did.

“I know I’ve done this all wrong, that I’ve messed up from the very first step but I mean it. I’m sorry, Fjord. I’d say you have to believe me but you don’t, because I’ve been the biggest shite on the continent and you have the right to think so.”

“Planet.” What?

“What?” Molly repeated the sentiment out loud; a new insult he was not privy to? Things can change in language so fast and he had no way to really know how long whomever had been in this vessel of his before had been gone and he—

“Biggest shit on the  _planet_ .” The matter of fact delivery, paired with the gruff tone and almost childish shrug and pout Fjord tried to suppress as he grumbled the words out, had Molly stifling his laughter. He tried to turn his head but the movement had him under suspicion before he could even dream of preventing it.   
  
“You’re laughing?  _Now_? Scratch that, not even the planet is a big enough range. In the universe! And all the others, every plane cowers before your ability to be an utter and complete ass.”

The way he carried on had Molly closing his eyes and trying to breathe through the snort that had risen through his throat and burst unceremoniously out of his nose and he waved a hand apologetically in the other's direction, hoping the sentiment seemed as genuine as it was.

“Oh, Gods, no, it’s not you, it’s— Well, it is you— No, don’t frown like that, it’s, I mean, you’re being very…” It was Molly’s turn to gesture frantically now, grasping at words to find what he meant without sounding like a condescending prick. “Cute?” Mission failed, he supposed.

“The ice you are on is so thin, Mollymauk Tealeaf, that someone might think you’re levitating.” It was fair and perhaps he should be burnt by it, but he found himself soothed by it. Fjord was always disapproving, always trying to dodge the madness that came with the circus man, yet there always the edge of appreciation there. Mollymauk always felt more when Fjord was there, that even as he was being chided he was also being loved. He felt it now.

Or until Fjord spoke again.

“So cute you fell in love with me?” It wasn’t sharp, but still it was. It wasn’t sugar-coated poison, and yet it was. That was something else Molly had come to know about his roommate, he could take your words and turn them back to you in ways you hadn’t thought of, not always to scratch into a wound but often it was the result. He could walk right through the obvious and yet land straight on the pressure point.

Really, he should have stared straight in to those questioning pools of ochre and said “Yes” without a second thought. He could have leapt forward and caught those pursed, chapped lips with his own, worried but still velvet smooth. But he didn't. He stood there and stared dumbly up at the other and said nothing. A minute passed and neither of them had moved, nor spoken, and in the silence Molly’s brain had jump started itself, a million things rebounding off of the walls of what Fjord must have assumed by now was an empty cavity.

Without warning, piercing the fog of his panic riddled mind, a heavy accent filtered through.

“... _You just have to be brave and chase that happiness.._.”

Could it be done, though? Was there a brave bone left in this shell? Molly had been brave, once, had taken on the world with a heart and mind both as blank as new, crisp paper. He had chased everything he had ever wanted yet now he paled in the face of what had the potential to be the greatest adventure of his life. There was no clock in this room, no physical manifestation of his chances dwindling but he felt the ticking in his pulse, in the rapid pace of his heartbeat.

“Something like that.” It was always humbling to know he had the ability to startle people so, it was a pastime he never grew wary of. Now, watching Fjord tumble from one emotion to another, as if he had goaded Molly with the confidence of a man who felt he had already lost, it hit Molly like one of Beau’s fists, hard and fast, deserved though, leaving him breathless where he stood; Fjord hadn’t thought he would say yes, not because he imagined Molly to be the coward that the tiefling so often named himself, but because he genuinely, with absolute certainty, had thought it wasn’t true. The pieces practically moved themselves, latching together in the form of an unhappy yet jarringly funny puzzle. He had left the room because he was scared of the answer Molly might give, not because he didn’t want to hear that he was loved but because he had felt so sure that he wasn’t. So he thought of another, then? Imagined in that brief moment that Mollymauk spent his days longing for another’s hands on him, that maybe Fjord was just a body to add to the list and that his heart had never been in this room at all?

It broke him and put him together all at once, the noise he made a cross between a sob and a laugh.

“You really thought… You thought I was using you?”

“I didn’t know what to think.” It was alarming how quickly they had almost reversed themselves, Fjord feeling like he had a case to plead now, that Molly could ever be mad at him for thinking that he was not enough. Molly thought for a passing second that perhaps he was, angry that is, but only in the sense that someday whomever had made him this way would surely pay for the pain they had wrought, and he was furious that he would not be there to witness it. Nor be the one to deal it.

“There’s no one else.” It was a surprise to hear his own voice so low and gentle, he wasn’t sure if he ever had. “Fjord I promise you, with real words this time, you… You’re all there is.”

There was silence between them once more, filling the minimal space that was left between their bodies. It felt different now, it didn’t press or suffocate, it simply settled over them and Molly basked in it’s stillness, bathed in a calm he thought he hadn’t felt since long ago. The realisation was slow but it reached him finally, that he had lay in this calm only yesterday, nestled in it’s hold as he was held by the arms that made him understand what it meant to feel safe again.

He had expected to be the one to break the stretch of quiet so it was impossible for him to stop the jolt of his shoulders as Fjord shattered it for him;

“I’ve never told anyone that I—“ He couldn’t even say it now. “I’ve never said it before, not like that.”

Molly felt his shoulders rise again, this time with the familiar inflation of his chest that came when he felt he could continue, the gentle rush of trust in his own self, sparked by just the faintest prospect of victory.

He hadn’t said it. He hadn’t.

But he might.

There was just a single wisp of bravery left in Mollymauk, a single lit wick that fluttered in the breeze of every word he heard that wasn’t the outright admittance of a mutual adoration but he stood his ground anyway. He allowed himself one step, then two, three until he was right beside Fjord, a gentle sigh rushing from his lungs with the knowledge that the other had not simply ran from him. Whilst letting the backs of both their hands graze by each other, the tiniest spark of something between them, Molly spoke again.

“Neither have I.” He had meant the words to keep them on equal ground, a lifeline in the unknown; he let the candlelight in him grow and grow as Fjord looked to him, bravery ignited, hopeful and sure and—

“You don’t  _know_  that.”

Oh.

The calm splintered again.

It really was like a fire started then, deep in his chest, a burning and blackening ash that made his next breath rasp in his throat. It was a struggle to grasp not only that it would matter, as if telling another man he had loved them would make this love less? No, that was plausible to him, nonsensical on some level perhaps, but plausible. The pain emanated from the wound caused after, the cut made when he had been distracted by the other bladed words. The pain Fjord didn’t even understand.

That the Mollymauk now was the Whomever then. That they were the same.

_Oh._

“I have never said those words.” Had it always been so hard to speak like this? To look at him like this? He could feel the shake in his wrists as he pulled Fjord’s hands to him, forcing calloused palms against the smooth silk of his shirt, hoping the erratic beat beneath it could prove his point for him. “ _I_  have never.  _Me_. This mouth I can’t account for, there were years it wasn’t mine, but now it is and I will use it as I wish.”

Sliding the jade skinned hands up to his cheeks, it became nigh impossible not to plainly crumple beneath them in mirth, misery and defeat. He allowed his eyes to close as he spoke and he did not recognise his voice for the umpteenth time that day.

“I say callous things sometimes, carefree and careless both, I know.” It was meek, filled with fear, only the warmth of the palms on his skin and the promise of more urging it on, the sound all but disconnected from its origin. “I want to leave places better than I found them and that’s true for people too, in a way—“

“I don’t need fixin’, Mollymauk.” The sudden nature of his reply had Molly’s hands twitching in surprise over the others, startled at the rumbling deep certainty of it’s tone set against the muted terror in his own. 

“No, you don’t.” He could match that certainty here at least. “I don’t believe I do either.” He couldn’t help but pause again, fang like incisor worrying at a plump lower lip, unkempt nails pressing what he’s sure are painful crescents in to the green flesh of Fjord’s hands.

“For now, I want you to be me and I want to be the town. The truth is we’re both, all the time.” There was a distinctive twist in the taller man's expression at this, clearly trying to follow the impossible setup of a ridiculous metaphor. Molly persevered. “I can make a town happy if I do my job right, even just one person smiling is a winning situation; That happiness is my reward, it has been since I found the circus, but it’s not enough anymore. I’m apparently young, yes? Well I have decided to grow up and with my newly found wisdom in my maturity, I plan to be selfish. I want to be happy, I want to be happy with you. A trade, if you will, in joy.”

Red eyes stared up, searching for a flicker of something in the other, even when they could not find it the man behind them continued, unperturbed.

“In this moment you are me, or anyone else that has ever entertained, a joy giver. Today you could leave me with happiness, we could have it, together. Tomorrow I will be me again, all the joy in my hands to give, and you, the town. I will leave you with so much laughter you will never live a day without a smile.”

It was a long moment before a reply came. Plain and unwavering as he had come to expect.

“And if you didn’t feel like you had to hide behind all of that? If, for once, you left behind the glamour over you and let me see behind the curtain?” Gently wrestling his hands free, Fjord slid them up and up, finally pressing those scarred palms to Mollymauk’s equally marred throat, using large squared thumbs to tilt that curved chin upwards to him, savouring every second that their skin stayed flush together. His eyes never left theirs. “What would you say then? What are you really asking for, Molly?”

Most people when looking at Mollymauk could never pick a spot to settle their focus on, he couldn’t blame them, he had designed every aspect of himself that way, a majestic menagerie of colour and pattern, a labyrinth of misdirection. Fjord however, was never like that. He never let a sparkle on a jewel or a sliver of gold distract him from keeping his gaze firm and steady, piercing in to the other with disarming accuracy.

Molly had let his curiosity win for once.

‘It’s all for you.’ Fjord had said that night, just hours ago, as they lay on the trussed blankets of Molly’s bed, facing each other in the pitch dark; their legs were intertwined and only the feeling of a sailor’s fingers brushing along the length of his side kept sleep away from the tiefling’s gilded heavy lids. The half-orc’s voice was barely anything more than a breath at this point, but it was all that the other could hear, hardly there at all and somehow the only thing that there had ever been. ‘You don’t wear it for me, do you? I know that, I also know you love it and it’s real beautiful, but I don’t need it. I’ve been following gold since I was a child, Molly, and I’ve had enough.’ Holding his breath as he felt familiar fingertips climbing higher, working up his arm, his throat and his cheek, Mollymauk released the air from his lungs in one last content sigh as he finally felt them brushing stray hairs away from his face. ‘I’ve grown up since then, I’ve learned that there are things to worship that you will never tire of.’

Now, in this shitty room at a shitty inn with it’s shitty candles that had burned out during the night, he wondered if it were that simple. If you could wake one day, grown and wise, and decide to be something else; could he just decide to say what he meant and really follow through? He met that unyielding gaze with his own wavering one, ashamed of how afraid he could be in such ridiculously tame moments, how he could let his heart run wild with fear as he all but lay in the safety net already, far from the treacherous heights that threatened him just before.

It was those eyes that told him, reassured him, held him where he was with comfort and pushed him off the cliff with confidence both at once. And so he did what he had always done in the face of a challenge; he jumped.

“I think that I would ask if you could love me.” He prayed as he spoke, a prayer with every breath, to every god he had ever worn upon his body. “I’m asking if you will.”

He crumpled then, under the hands of the other as he had always known it would be so easy to do. Allowing his face to fall against the chest in front of him, long fingers catching fold after fold of heavy knit between them, bringing the fabric towards his cheeks and inhaling the familiar scent. “Please.”

The gentle plea was added so quietly that he had no way of knowing if Fjord had heard it but it was there now, sitting starkly unguarded in the air between them. His heart was made real, given life in words and it hung there, open and bleeding and asking for shelter.  
  


Fjord held himself still for a long while — or what felt like a long while to Mollymauk’s metaphorically gaping wound — allowing himself this self serving time to stew in the feeling that hit him like a blast to the chest, every second like a new wave of it, his heart swelling with each one. The road to this point could have been simpler, he knew that, he could have mentioned all those weeks ago that just the sound of those gold tipped boots tapping distantly towards him set his nerves alight; could have told Molly any day since then how he counted every second between the smiles that showed the dimple set deep in to his left cheek that he dreamed of nightly, knew that he should have told him yesterday as they lay together, sweat soaked and breathless and laughing against each others lips. Every day since they had met had been an adventure, a lesson in social graces and battle stances, Molly had things to say and Fjord had time to listen. Time to watch, too. It was heaven, he thought, to wake in his bed and see that gentle rise of lavender as he just watched the hunter breathe, savouring the elusive scene of a jewel-less Molly bathed in pure peace.

Being roommates had been a blessing and a curse, a glimpse into the mundane moments that everyone had to live through but to Fjord each one had become a treasure to collect. Molly liked to do things, he found he was a being that would not stop until he simply could do no more. Fjord loved that moment, those rare, split-second images of a purple heap, lounging on his bed or Fjord’s, soft and muted in a way that made Fjord’s entire body feel like it was built from static, the gentle buzz carrying him through the pain of every bad day. There were days when they would all just... be with each other. They would sit around, sharing stories and tales and memories, huddled together around hearths or tables or both, heating their bodies and hearts alike. It was those days that Fjord would allow himself to feel what he knew was there, he would let his body rest a little closer than perhaps he should, he would shift his leg or an arm just so and allow himself half a breathe to revel in the feeling of his body against theirs. Molly was always warm, in body and soul he was fire and he had Fjord alight every day that he lived.

Everyone had heard that they should live in the moment, that they had to live each second to the fullest or live only to regret. Fjord knew now that he had not. Looking down, eyes trained now on the crown of Molly’s head, he felt the pressure of this moment dredging up every memory of every bad decision he had ever made, or the ones he had refused to make, and as much as it felt like a punch to his gut to relive each scene again, it also felt like a second chance. Every missed opportunity before this rushing back to him, filing in to this single thread of fate; Is this what it feels like? To be smiled upon by luck?

Molly was trembling now beneath those hands that dwarfed his shoulders, they roamed from there to his back, all the way down to his hips and back again. He thought that it was as if he could feel the anxiety dwelling in Fjord, like he could feel the electrical tickle of it with every tap of green fingertips to whatever sliver of his own purple flesh was uncovered. They eventually found their way back to his face, cupping it softly and bringing it away from where it had found its safety, buried between the soft filled lines of Fjord’s chest, the taller man brushed his thumbs repeatedly over the sculpted rise of those perfectly severe cheekbones as wet eyes stared up at him, unblinking but full feeling and Fjord could have sworn he felt the earth move beneath his feet.

He wouldn’t allow himself to be without this for another day.

“I believe I have already mentioned that I have found something more valuable to follow, yes?” Feeling the nod between his palms faster than he saw it, the orc powered on.

“My heart is on its knees when you’re here, Mollymauk Tealeaf.” His full name was always a treat with that accent, though it slipped in to another across the syllables, he found that he still adored them both the same. “You cut me down, raise me up and hold me steady at every point between them. You are the altar and I am here to worship.”

As Fjord spoke he and Molly had shifted, like planets in orbit they danced around each other until they were close enough that their breath mingled and Fjord couldn’t help the sigh of laughter he released as his one-time-broken nose bumped against the straight, sharp point of the tiefling’s own.

“And—“ Mollymauk paused, a smile in his voice and on his lips, that smooth lilt made every word that followed the first feel like a dream, and even as the taunting tone began to cut it to pieces, Fjord remained charmed. “If you didn’t feel like you had to hide behind all of that? What would you say?”

They laughed because it was funny, they grew closer because they needed it and they sighed because it was a dream. It was simple, really, they found it was easy now, now that the words had escaped those self-inflicted prisons and they swirled and twisted and burrowed deep inside the veins of the other. They were so close they could have been just one entity. It had always been so frightening to put a name to this, to do more than just pine for one another across battlefields and bars, yet it was so easy, it had been and it would always be, if they simply let it be.

“I think I would say,” This time Fjord bumped their noses together with purpose, etching every feature that was already so familiar, yet new again in the afterglow of a confession, in to his mind all over again. “That there hasn’t been a day since I found you that I haven’t been in love.”

Mollymauk had lived through so many lies just today, more still since he had lived, that the sound of the truth swelled in him like it was filling every corner of his being. It pressed on him from all sides but it was sweet, a soothing crush of warmth around his heart and he didn’t bow to the fear that snapped at his heels; the weight of the love he had been given settled in to his hands like it had been built for them.

 

He could carry this, he thought, for the rest of his life.


End file.
